Your best IELTS study partner

IELTS Band 9 in the Speaking test is thought of as next to impossible for non-native English speakers. However, Marlon – a 30 year-old man from Sri Lanka – has proven this can be achieved even by a person who did not speak English from birth. And he won in our monthly IELTS results competition in June as a result 🙂 Even though Marlon’s first language is Singhalese his English is apparently just as good, and today he shared a few tips that can help you, too, get a similar score in the IELTS test.

Marlon says:

“As far as speaking is concerned, I think what really helped me was the fact that I watch English dramas (British) as I love watching such dramas, for example, ‘Midsomer Murders’, ‘Doctor in the House’, ‘Doctor at Large’, etc, and also watching programmes such as stand up comedy shows or even shows like ‘The Daily Show with Jon Stewart’ as well as documentaries about history, politics and travel.

I think that watching these dramas not only helped me improve my vocabulary but also pronunciation and expressions as well.

Almost on a daily basis I read the news by visiting websites such as CNN, CBS News, NBC etc and whenever I come across a new word, I refer to the Cambridge Dictionary Online for its meaning and usage.

And besides these habits which I follow not because of IELTS test but because I find it interesting and stimulating, I also did some practicing using past test papers, especially the listening and writing modules.

The Speaking questions below were shared by P who recently took the IELTS test in India:

Speaking test

Interview

– What is your full name?
– Can I see your ID?
– Where are you from?
– Do you work or study?
– Tell me about the place you are living in now.
– Is this a good place to stay with children?
– Lets talk about taxis.
– Do you travel by taxi often? Why?
– When did you travel last by taxi?

Cue Card

Talk about a city you have recently visited. Please say

– Which city was it?
– When did you visit it?
– What did you do there?

Discussion

– What type of people live in big city?
– Are people migrating to big cities in your country? Why?
– Do you think there are more problems in a big city compared to a small town?
– What are these problems in your opinion?
– How can we overcome these problems?
– What can be done to solve them permanently?